Saturday, 18 May 2013

How the landscape in Kiribati Changed overtime?

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to
investigate factors that are contributing to the changes of the landscape of the
land in Kiribati.In doing this
research, I choose south Tarawa which is the capital city of Kiribati to do my
research on it. The landscape on south Tarawa is absolutely changed as there
are many factors that happening on the island. Refer to the picture shown below
for the map of Kiribati.

Map of Kiribati

Hypothesis:Urban development is the main factors
that contributing to the changes of the landscape on south Tarawa.

There
are many factors that contributing to the changes of the landscape of a land.
These factors may be natural or human activity. Natural factors are commonly
known as natural disasters as they occurred naturally andmostly found in volcanic islands. Some
example of natural disasters are floods,
typhoons, earthquakes, hurricanes, and even wildfires but these natural
disasters are not found in Kiribati. In Kiribati, human activities is the main
factorthat changed the landscape of the
land. Human activities can sometimes link with natural events such as erosion.
These human activity arise from urban development as people altered the
landscape by constructing roads and buildings and the establishment of
causeways and seawalls.

Firstly, the construction of
roads is one of the things that actually changed the landscape in Kiribati. In
South Tarawa which is the capital city of Kiribati, upgrading roads in villages
is more priority to the government. Refer to figure 1 to see villages that upgrading
their road. When I interview with one of the MELAD officer, and he stated that
in those centuries, there is no flat road on every islands as it was only a
rough and narrow path. The introduction of a wide and modern road actually
change the landscape of the land as if there are high places or valleys on the
land, this needed to flatten and make tem smooth so that transports can use it
when travelling from villages to villages. A good example of a wide and modern
road was just found in south Tarawa. Besides, the construction of new buildings
also lead to a changing of the landscape of a land. In south Tarawa, there are
many places being destroyed to provide spaces for the establishment of new
buildings. For example, sport complex in Betio and Junior Secondary School in
Betio. This where it cause a great destruction to the environment and a massive
deforestation to plants in order to provide such available spaces for those
particular new buildings.

Secondly, the construction of
causeways is also having an impact on
the landscape of the land. In South Tarawa, there is a causeway that connected
between Bairiki and Betio and this causeway absolutely affect the landscape of
Bikeman. Bikeman is an isletsituated in
the northeast of Betio and you can see its picture in Figure 2. In the 1970s
there are many plants that can be seen growing on this little islet. When the
Dai Nippon causeway established in the 1980s, the current of south Tarawa at
that time was changed where Bikeman was started to erode. In the 1990s Bikeman
was disappeared and it turned to a sandbank where it can be seen just in the
low tide.Refer to Fig.1 to see the
picture of Bikeman.

Finally, the establishment of
seawalls also affect the landscape of the land. The establishment of seawalls in
South Tarawa is a new situation where it affect the coastal areas to be eroded.
When referring to figure 7 which shows the coastal erosion in Nanikai, this is
happened after the establishment of a seawall not far from that place.
Generally, the construction of seawall actually link the changing of the wave
current. Once the seawall established, the sea current is also changed. From
this where the wave current naturally changed its function and as a result it
can caused erosion to coastal areas at that particular place.

In conclusion, it obvious that human activities is
contributed to the changing of the landscape in Kiribati. This where people can
modify the land in a way that they can flaten those rough places and also
ruined the life of natural vegetation when cutting down plants and trees in an
excessive amount. Building causeways and seawalls can absolutely cause erosion
to many low islands as it changes the wave current. This can change the
landscape of the land where the land can sometimes disappearedjust the same case with Bikeman islet.

2 comments:

Urban Development is actually affect the landscape to change overtime. These development are the constructions of road and new buildings, construction of causeway, the constructions of seawalls and many others.